Thursday 8 Sept 2011:
Hello everyone, the illegal work continues, so too does the vigil. Cold wind today, bright sun.
MEANWHILE:
Yesterday (Wed 7TH September) the cloud lifted an we had a beautiful sunny day. I was again joined by a succession of supporters determined to show their opposition to this now-illegal project. I thank them all for their continuing attendance. There are two extra special people that I’d like to single out for a mention. You’ll see them in one of the attached photos. They are two gentlemen by the name of Hans and Keith. They have made it their special task to be with me while I am by the roadside outside the project boom gate. Just as the George Town policeman gave me sympathetic advice and hoped I wouldn’t stay here after dark, they too are concerned that on my own I might not be completely safe. So they juggle their time between work shifts and business commitments to be with me. [Even as cars roar past, contorted faces yelling ‘Get a fxckxng real job!’ etc.] We laugh and pass it off in that way. I should say that it would be less than one in a hundred that would do that. And yet, the only people that have actually directly communicated their support for the mill to me, have done it with anger, aggressive gestures and foul language.
There is a regular stream of smaller vehicles now entering the project site. Trade vehicles and the like. Some of them come in to unload smaller plant/equipment and then come back out and return to town. Yesterday a couple of big dump trucks came in on the back of some big transports. They bore the Becketts insignia, if I’m not much mistaken. (photo)
Thank you to Karl Stevens whose sign “ILLEGAL PROJECT” is being used to great effect. (photo) Wonderful news from Pulp the Mill and Lucy Landon-Lane. I will be donating a substantial sum to the legal expenses. Congratulations PTM! I hope everyone will support their call for money to bring on the legal action.
ALEX SCHAAP (Director, EPA):
“An EPA officer was on site yesterday and reports that temporary settlement ponds were indeed under construction. These ponds are specifically provided for under the previously approved stormwater management plan for the site and so required no additional approvals. They are small ponds under 1Ml in capacity which are interim measures used during the early construction phase and will largely be replaced in the longer term when the permanent ponds are constructed. It is the larger permanent dams (above the 1 Ml threshold) which require approval through a dam permit and so work on the permanent settlement pond is not currently authorised and, on the basis of yesterday’s inspection, is not occurring.”
THE LAPSED SETTLEMENT POND – COMPOSED OF SEVERAL SMALL PONDS!!!!!!!!!!
No <1mgl pond is an pond entire of itself; every pond is a piece of the overall, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the rain, Long Reach is the less, as well as if a pond were, as well as a >1mgl settlement pond
…And therefore never send to know for what the ponds are dug; they serve as parts of thee … the whole …the settlement pond the permit of which lapsed last month.
Clearly we have a rogue EPA. Join the club. An ICT that drags its feet, the GBE: F.T. that should be abolished and an EPA that refused to prosecute Gunns for the Huon Valley smoke travesty and now colludes with Gunns to circumvent the lapsed permit.
LOCAL VISITORS:
A Couple called in yesterday to express their support. They are landholders adjacent to Gunns who refused to allow their pipeline through their property. They are very concerned about the quality of their source of living – they have a 2000 tree olive orchard producing olive oil. Last year they won a national silver medal (in their production category) for their oil. I was told of their fears that the organo-chlorines that would come from the pulp mill stack could be absorbed into their oil and ruin it. He told me that olive oil had this particular quality of absorbing from the air nasty things such as organo-chlorines. I wonder if Warwick Raverty could fill us in on this side of things. I guess he’d know the chemistry underlying such a process.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR PTM (Pulp the Mill):
“You can make a donation to our legal fund or action and administration fund – or both!
Bendigo Bank
“Pulp the Mill – legal fund”
BSB 633-000 Acc 138361738
“Pulp the Mill” (action and admin fund)
BSB 633-000 Acc 138361696
Your support is greatly appreciated and will enable us to continue to pulp the mill!”
Garry Stannus
email: [email protected]
phone: 0418 139 231
• ABC Online: Gunns hands in mill submission
Timber giant Gunns has submitted its case to the environment watchdog to continue work on its proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill.
Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority says it has received a submission from Gunns explaining how it has substantially commenced work on the mill.
EPA Director Alex Schaap says he expects to make a decision next week and will also release the main body of the submission.
It comes a day after the Pulp the Mill group launched legal action against the company claiming permits for the mill expired at the end of August.
Gunns says the permits are still valid and earthworks are continuing.
• Forestry deal down to Burke, says Brown
The Australian Greens Leader claims the Federal Government will be to blame if the deal to restructure Tasmania’s forest industry collapses.
Bob Brown has urged Federal Forestry Minister Tony Burke to take over compensation negotiations with timber company Gunns.
There have been fears that the $276 million inter-governmental forest agreement could fall over after Gunns rejected the State Government’s first compensation offer to give up residual timber rights.
Premier Lara Giddings says the forest funding package will collapse if Gunns does not abandon the rights.
The Federal Government has left the negotiating up to the state but Senator Brown says that has been a mistake.
“I would expect Tony Burke to get the gumption to intervene and ensure the taxpayers’ interests are looked after,” he said.
“He won’t get that if he leaves it to Lara Giddings.
“This is $270 million-plus of taxpayers’ money and it’s coming from the Commonwealth.
“He has an obligation to ensure that money is well spent and putting it at arms length to a Government down here, which is in turn captive of the logging industry, is simply not responsible,” Senator Brown said.
State-owned company Forestry Tasmania remains party to the negotiations which also aim to resolve a debt dispute between Gunns and FT.
